Wicked Creatures

by Jessica Meigs

  “Is that her name?” a voice asked. Scott lifted his head, slowly and laboriously, and saw the dark-haired woman in red standing at the foot of the stairs. “Riley?”

  Does this woman ever change her clothes? he wondered, a bit irrationally, but he didn’t dare ask the question out loud. He wiggled in his chair, trying to loosen his shoulders; his joints were hurting like hell. “I’m not talking about her. At all. So don’t bother asking.”

  “You’re a very loyal man, aren’t you, Mr. Hunter?” she asked. She moved away from the stairs and stood in front of him, studying him with a clinical eye. “How do you feel?”

  “How do I look?” he shot back.

  “Terrible,” the woman admitted.

  “Well, okay then.” He sat back in his chair, ignoring the shivering shaking his frame.

  The woman pressed a gentle hand against his bruised and battered cheek. He jerked away from her touch. She didn’t look bothered by his actions. If anything, she looked like she’d expected it.

  “My name is Ahm,” she said, withdrawing her hand.

  “What the hell kind of name is Ahm?” he asked, not thinking twice about whether he should ask the question.

  “It means ‘mother,’” Ahm said.

  “I almost didn’t want to ask whose mother,” he said, tilting his head back to look up at her. “Something tells me I won’t like the answer.”

  Ahm knelt in front of him, much like a mother getting on eye level with a young child. “No, you probably won’t,” she acknowledged. Son of a bitch, he thought. It was like the moment he heard the word “mother,” his brain became stuck on mother-child analogies. He almost scowled at the thought, but it fled from his mind when she placed her hands on his knees and met his eyes, opening her mouth to reveal a set of jagged, razor-sharp fangs that looked so much worse than the ones that Zachariah had. His stomach lurched.

  “Oh, holy shit,” he gasped, rocking back in his chair in a desperate attempt to get away from her. “What the hell are you, woman?”

  Ahm grinned, which only served to expose her fangs even more. Scott cringed, deeply uncomfortable. “I am the mother,” she said. “The mother of everything that crawls in the dark. The mother of demons and all else that comes from Hell save for the Devil himself and all his angels. They’re all mine, my babies, my corruptions.”

  “Oh God,” Scott breathed.

  “No need to call out to Him,” Ahm said. “He can’t help you. You’re beyond His help now.”

  “What are you talking about?” he demanded.

  Ahm took her hand off his right knee and lowered it to his ankle. She grasped it tightly, sending a lightning bolt of pain up his leg to his knee. He cried out involuntarily and jolted in his chair. “Do you want to know why you feel so bad?” she asked. Her voice dropped to a level that could only be described as low and husky, and she released his ankle and slid her hand back up to his knee, leaving a thin trail of his blood in the dark blue fabric of his jeans. “Do you want to know why you feel like your body is burning from the inside out?” She brushed her hand through his hair like she was soothing a small child then moved her mouth a mere inch from his ear and whispered, “It’s because you’re becoming one of mine.”

  Horror invaded Scott’s mind. Before he could process what she’d said or the muddle of emotions he felt, she grabbed the front of his shirt, ripped it down the middle, and shoved it to the sides before darting forward like a striking snake to plunge her fangs into his neck.

  Thirteen

  It had taken them nearly two hours to hash out a solid plan and endless minutes waiting for dark to fall before they’d launched said plan, and Riley was going stir crazy by the time they’d left Marie’s apartment to begin their rescue mission. She crouched in the shadows across the street from the house Scott was held in, Zachariah at her side, watching for any signs of movement. Somewhere on the other side of the house, Jax and Ashton were hidden, waiting for a signal. Riley was amazed that Zachariah had agreed to partner with her and hadn’t insisted on going with Ashton. She wondered if he had an ulterior motive for doing so, but now wasn’t the time to question him about it. They had more important things at hand.

  “You all right?” Zachariah asked. His voice was so hushed it barely carried to her.

  “I’m fine,” she said in an equally quiet voice. There was a faint light glowing in one of the narrow basement windows close to the ground. She focused her eyes on it to the exclusion of all else, knowing in her heart that that was where Scott was being held.

  “What happened between you and Scott?” Zachariah pressed. “And before you jump down my throat about how it’s not my business, I’m asking because I’m worried about you.”

  “Why bother being worried about me?” she asked.

  “Because you’re acting like me when I’m on the warpath, and when I’m on the warpath, things always go to shit.”

  Riley sighed. “We had sex, okay?” she muttered. “Twice. And I haven’t decided whether or not I regret it.”

  “Damn, that’s definitely a conundrum,” he said. “Though I can’t say I really blame you for sleeping with him. If I was unattached, I probably would have made a pass or two myself at some time or other.” He gave her a small, crooked smile and added, “I guess we’ll have to get him back so you can figure out if that’s a mistake you made or not, huh?”

  “Oh, can we not have any more comments from the peanut gallery?” Riley muttered, scowling.

  “Sorry,” Zachariah replied, much to her surprise. “I’m not trying to go all big brother on you or insert myself into your life when I barely know you. But you are my sister, and I’m your brother, whether we like it or not. And since we’re family, I’d like to get to know you better.”

  “Why?”

  “Because family is very important to me,” he said. “It always has been.”

  Riley finally tore her eyes away from the faint beacon of hope she’d been gazing at and looked at Zachariah. He studied the house they’d be entering with almost as much intensity as she’d been using. Before she could address the wish he’d vocalized, he dashed off a text on his phone, jammed the device into his pocket, and said, “Let’s move.”

  Riley breathed out a curse and followed him. They slinked across the street to the front of the house, pressing against the crumbling vinyl siding, one on either side of the weathered, slouching wooden porch. He indicated for her to go up then counted down from five with his fingers.

  Riley didn’t make a sound as she and Zachariah mounted the porch and stopped on either side of the front door. This time, he counted to three then kicked the door open and ducked inside, cutting right. She followed, going left, and at the back of the house, she heard the rear door being kicked open as Ashton and Jax made their entrances.

  There were two men sitting at a small card table in the center of the room playing hands of poker. They’d been at it for a while, judging by the mound of cash in the center of the table. As Riley and Zachariah entered, they shouted in alarm and rose from their seats; the card table toppled over with a crash, scattering money and playing cards across the dirty floorboards. Both men reached for the pistols holstered on their belts—not the actions of werewolves. Riley took aim and fired before the closest man’s pistol cleared its holster; Zachariah fired his own weapon at nearly the same instant. The men tumbled back, falling over chairs and dropping their weapons. Considering how easy it’d been to kill them, they were definitely not werewolves.

  “Well, if they didn’t already know we’re here, they know now,” she muttered.

  “Nothing we can do about it,” Zachariah commented, “except to continue on. We need to find the basement door.”

  “Don’t they usually have it in the kitchen or somewhere near it?”

  “Probably,” he acknowledged. “Lead the way. This is your op, after all.”

  They made their way to the kitchen, Riley in the lead and Zachariah following a foot behind and to the right of her. Ashton and
Jax were already in the kitchen, but other than them, there was no sound or sign of any other people in the house. It was quiet, too quiet; the utter silence made her scalp prickle. She frowned, glanced at their surroundings, and said, “I don’t like this.”

  “Me, either,” Zachariah replied. “It feels like something is waiting in the corner for its chance to jump us.”

  “I’ll check upstairs,” Jax said. “Ashton, you stay here and guard the doors like we planned.”

  Zachariah looked at Riley, and she gave him a tentative smile. “Going down?” she asked, motioning to the door set in the kitchen’s interior wall.

  “Yeah, let’s go,” he answered. He went to the door and grasped the padlock holding it shut; he pulled, the muscles in his arm bulging, and to Riley’s surprise, the lock snapped. Tossing the broken lock aside, he turned the knob and shoved the door open. Riley followed him down the stairs, her pistol angled to shoot at any threats that presented themselves. Her nerves jittered under her skin when Zachariah reached the bottom. He swept the room and drew in a sharp breath.

  “What?” she demanded. She threw caution to the wind and raced down the rest of the stairs as fast as her feet would carry her. She reached the concrete floor and looked in the direction Zachariah stared, not liking the look of horror on his face.

  What she saw in the dim light from a camping lantern on a nearby workbench made her heart drop to the pit of her stomach.

  Scott was slumped in a metal folding chair, his eyes closed and his head bowed forward until his chin rested against his bare chest. He was bound by his wrists and ankles to the chair, the splinted cast she’d strapped around his arm practically gone; his shirt had been ripped open straight down the middle and hung in loose rags. He’d clearly been beaten, his torso covered in developing bruises. But most alarming was the gash on his shoulder—so close to his neck that she had the alarming thought that his throat had been cut—and the significant amount of blood that had run down his chest and stomach. She couldn’t tell whether or not he was breathing.

  Trusting that Zachariah would watch her back, Riley rushed forward and dropped to her knees in front of the chair, ignoring the cold, thick puddle of blood her right knee landed in. She holstered her pistol to free her hands then reached toward him. She hesitated halfway, staring at him, trying to figure out if he was still alive. She feared that second where her fingers touched his skin and she’d know for certain that he was dead. She worried what would happen if the moment that she knew he was dead was realized.

  Hesitantly, Riley pressed a hand against his cheek, and just like that, her heart lifted from her gut back into her chest. His skin was cool, but it wasn’t dead-person cool. It was cool like going-into-shock-from-blood-loss cool. And even as the relief hit her, she began noticing the important things: the fact that his wounds were still oozing, the fact that his chest was slowly and shallowly rising and falling.

  “He’s alive,” she told Zachariah, the relief in her voice evident. “Come help me with him.”

  Zachariah joined her, pulling a knife from its sheath on his belt and attacking the restraints that bound Scott’s wrists as Riley cut his ankles free. Once he’d been freed from his confines, Scott slumped sideways, and Zachariah caught him before he fell to the floor. He scooped him up, hooking an arm under his knees and one under his shoulders, and nodded to Riley. “Let’s go.”

  Ashton and Jax were waiting for them when they emerged from the basement. Jax started talking as soon as Riley set foot on the kitchen floor’s ugly linoleum.

  “Upstairs was clear,” he said. “No sign that anyone has been up there, so—oh, holy shit.” Obviously, he’d caught sight of Scott, and he pushed past Riley to get a better look at him. He pressed a hand to Scott’s forehead and pried an eye open to get a look at it then leaned close, breathing in deeply like he was sniffing him. “He is not in good shape.”

  “No shit, Sherlock,” Riley snapped.

  Jax looked suitably chastened. “I’ll get the car,” he said. “You guys wait out front. Watch each other’s backs.” He disappeared out the back door.

  Riley and her companions retreated to the front lawn and waited impatiently for Jax to return with the SUV. As they waited, Riley couldn’t help but picture all the worst-case scenarios. What if Scott died while they waited for Jax to arrive? What if that woman in red showed up? What if an entire pack of werewolves made an appearance? It’d all been easy—too damn easy. If something happened right now, there was precious little they could do about it.

  Trying to distract herself from her thoughts, though not her surroundings, she glanced at Zachariah, who still held Scott, and asked, “Is he going to be okay?”

  “I hope so,” he replied. “I’ll be able to tell you something more definitive when we get someplace where I can examine him more closely.” She must have looked stressed, because his face slid into a sympathetic expression. “Don’t worry,” he added. “He’s breathing. That’s the important part. If he’s still breathing, then there’s still hope.”

  “True,” she acquiesced. She tore her eyes away from Zachariah and Scott, unable to bear looking at the unconscious, bloodied man. “I can’t deal with losing another partner,” she admitted. “Losing Kevin was hard enough. Losing Scott?” She cut herself off, watching as Jax pulled the SUV to the curb, threw the driver’s door open, and stepped out.

  “Let’s go before any assholes show up!” he called, signaling for them to hurry.

  Zachariah rushed forward, Riley right on his heels. “Ash, you take the front,” he said as Riley opened the back door for him and helped slide Scott into the backseat. Riley waited impatiently for him to slip underneath Scott’s legs to sit in the seat beneath them before she darted to the other side. She climbed in and wiggled underneath Scott’s torso with Zachariah’s help.

  Once she was settled into her seat with Scott’s head and shoulders in her lap, she met Jax’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Drive,” she ordered, and he did just that.

  Tate had no idea where Riley and her companions had gone—he’d been relegated to the office at the back of Marie’s store during whatever powwow they’d had upstairs—so since he was off duty, he’d opted to stay at the apartment they’d met her friends in and wait for their return. He had plenty to stew over in the meantime, information to process and turn over in his brain. He guessed that was what happened when one’s entire world got completely turned upside down.

  And boy, was his world turned upside down.

  It wasn’t every day that a woman he thought was a federal agent came out and said that not only was she not a federal agent, but she essentially hunted monsters. And the monsters! He didn’t know what to think about the monsters. What did one do when one had monsters dropped into one’s lap?

  “You look like you’re thinking very hard about something,” a slightly accented voice said, and Tate looked up to see Marie standing in the doorway of the little studio apartment. She had her arms folded and was leaning against the doorframe, positioned so she could keep an eye on both him and the entryway downstairs, where Riley and her friends would hopefully re-enter soon. “It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it?” she added before he had a chance to answer.

  “Did Riley tell you about all of this, too?” he asked. “Or did you find out by accident?”

  “It was a little of both,” Marie said, “except Riley didn’t tell me. Jax spilled the beans a few years ago when he saved me from a vampire. Even then, I wasn’t surprised the supernatural actually existed. There had always been stories and legends passed down in my family.” She shrugged. “I guess that’s what happens when your family runs the same kitschy voodoo shop for over a hundred years.”

  “So all of this doesn’t bother you?” he asked.

  Another shrug, this one a bit more careless than the previous one. “There’s nothing we can do about it, so I try not to stress over it too much.” She snorted softly. “Well, as long as they’re not threatening me directly.”


  Tate glanced at his watch and scowled. “Damn it, how much longer are they going to be?”

  “Worried?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Not particularly. You obviously have no idea what they’re capable of.” She abandoned her post at the door and crossed the room, flopping onto the bed near him with a surprising amount of grace. “You know how there are all those stories about secret government assassins who the President sends to kill world leaders or other people who become inconvenient?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s Riley and her friends,” Marie said. “They’re capable of some outright insane things. I have no doubt they’ll be able to take care of themselves just fine.”

  “The way you talk about them makes them sound incredibly shady,” he commented.

  “That’s because they are.”

  Before Tate could dredge up a reply, the quiet beep of a car horn outside drew their attentions to the window facing the street. He brushed the curtain aside and peered out. Riley and her companions had returned; he recognized the scarred man that had shown up with the tall, handsome one limping to the door and beating on it with a fist.

  “They’re here,” he told Marie. They hurried downstairs to let them in, Marie taking the lead, Tate following with his hand resting against his holstered service weapon. Ashton stood at the door, still tapping on the glass, looking not at the door but behind him at the vehicle. Riley and Jax were getting out; Zachariah stood outside the rear passenger door, pulling at something inside, and it took Tate a moment to realize he was dragging a body out of the backseat.

  “Shit,” he swore, unlocking and opening the door to help them. When he got closer, he realized it was Riley’s partner, shirtless, bloodied, and limp. “Damn, is he dead?” he blurted without thinking.